Uninvited
by LaCorriveau
Summary: A ghost story in three parts set after Sailor Moon R: Serena has a princely  and ghostly  visitor on Halloween night.  Happy Halloween!
1. Chapter 1

I decided that this time of year called for a spooky story, and I was inspired to write a little ghost story. Normally when I write this sort of fanfiction, I like to use the Japanese names (I just like them better than the English), but I feel like Halloween is a very American holiday, and it didn't feel right writing the Japanese names. So suffer with me and read the awful English dub names :) I was also inspired by the folklore surrounding jack-o-lanterns...very creepy ;) Enjoy! (I guess this is set sometime between Sailor Moon R and Stars...? Also, I do not own Sailor Moon and associated characters!)

Serena straightened the brim of Rini's black hat and removed a rogue smudge of lipstick from Rini's cheek.

"Do I look scary?" Rini asked hopefully, tipping her head back to look at Serena from underneath the brim of her witch's hat. Serena considered her daughter, hiding a small smile behind her hand; she wouldn't say that a five year old little girl with rambunctious pink curls and messy lipstick was a terrifying sight, but it was certainly endearing.

"Of course," Serena assured her, with a little tap on the nose. "The scariest witch I've ever seen!" Rini crowed with excitement and ran off to collect her broom and candy bag. Darien came up behind Serena and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"Is our little witch ready to go?" he asked, squeezing Serena around the waist. Serena smiled up at him, and then rested her head against his chest.

"I think so. She's practically bouncing off the walls."

"Why don't you come with us this year?" Darien asked, nudging the top of Serena's head with his chin.

"Oh, you know…" Serena said lightly, though she could feel her shoulders stiffen against Darien. He felt it too, because he gently turned her around, tipping her head back so he could look into her eyes.

"Serena, why won't you come out with us?"

"It's nothing," Serena said, shaking off his grip with a nervous laugh. "This is a good time for you and Rini to hang out together. I don't really like Halloween that much. I'll probably just have a cup of tea and wait for you two to come home."

Darien frowned, as though he weren't quite ready to drop it, but Rini suddenly burst into the room with a yell, brandishing her pumpkin-shaped bag.

"Daddy, let's go!" She bellowed, running behind Darien and pushing on his calves. "We'll miss all the good candy if we don't start now!"

Darien laughed, and pretended to be pushed out of the room by Rini. Serena followed behind, relieved; it appeared that Darien would let it rest for the time being, and she only needed a little time.

The three of them stepped out onto the porch, Rini darting out from behind Darien and throwing herself down the stairs and onto the lawn.

"Rini, don't you dare leave the yard without me!" Darien called. In the dusk, Serena could see that Rini stopped just as her toes hit the sidewalk. She then turned and grinned angelically at her parents, as though she intended all along to wait patiently for her father to escort her into the neighborhood.

"The jack-o-lantern isn't lit," Serena observed, looking at the cheerful pumpkin sitting empty and dark on their porch.

"I didn't want any trick-or-treaters to knock it over," Darien said with a shrug, bending down to kiss Serena on the top of her head. "I'll be home in a couple hours. Probably with Rini in restraints." Serena laughed and lightly pushed Darien toward Rini.

"Don't let her eat candy on the way home this time!" Serena called to his back. "Then you won't need the restraints!" She watched Darien take Rini's hand, and the two wandered off into the night.

Serena pulled her sweater tight around her shoulders; already the night was becoming cold. She went back into the house, but came out seconds later with a match and a candle.

"The jack-o-lantern wards off evil spirits," she said to herself, carefully setting the lit candle in the hollowed out pumpkin. The garish smile and lopsided eyes came to life, flickering gently in the gloom. "It's worth a shot, I guess."

She went back inside, locking the front door behind her, suppressing the urge to lug the pumpkin inside with her. A chill had descended over the house, chasing out whatever warmth had been there before Darien and Rini had left. Serena sighed. She really hated Halloween, but there was no way to explain to Darien why, much less to Rini, for whom Halloween was the end all, be all of her five years of existence.

There was a slight tremor in the air and the atmosphere in the house changed as though someone had flicked a switch. The dark rooms were now filled with a special shadowy gloom that would not be chased away with light. Serena's breath, now a little faster, showed in small white clouds. With a heavy sigh, she made started to move toward the kitchen. Before she left the front room, she looked back at the jack-o-lantern, visible through the window. His grin was dark and his eyes empty; the candle had gone out.


	2. Chapter 2

Keep your eyes out for the last part, to be posted by Halloween!

TEN YEARS EARLIER

Serena pressed her back against the wall, smiling wanly at the zombie football player and half-dressed policewoman as they obliviously stumbled by. She had felt out of place when Darien was standing right next to her, but since he had been swept up into a crowd of eager classmates playing drinking games, Serena felt like a downright outsider. She didn't know why she had been so eager to come to this party. Darien hadn't even wanted to go, but he felt some obligation since the host had been kind enough to save Darien's final exam paper from a rejected and vengeful teacher's assistant.

"You really don't have to come, Serena," Darien had said while they were on a date at the arcade. "I wish I didn't have to go. But Sam did me a huge favor, and it'd be rude to turn down his invitation."

"No way!" Serena had protested. "Sam invited me too, and I've never been to a college Halloween party before!"

Darien rolled his eyes, taking a sip from his milkshake and leaning back against the red patent booth.

"Shouldn't it tell you something when I, the college student, don't want to go?"

"It'll be fun!" Serena had cajoled him, throwing a French fry. With a raised eyebrow, Darien snatched the fry out of midair and popped it into his mouth. "I'll even let you pick my costume!"

Serena had said that in the hope that Darien, like any normal young man, would pick something cute, rocking and totally sexy for her to wear to her first ever college Halloween party. Instead, when they got to the costume store, Darien saw the wall of pictures containing leggy, bosomy girls in various provocative dresses and his face turned to stone. Muttering to himself, he had vanished into an aisle, only to return ten minutes later with a floor length, completely _appropriate_ angel costume.

"Darieeeeeen," Serena whined, brandishing the cute – albeit revealing- fairy costume that she had selected. "I want to be a-"

"No," he said firmly, cutting her off and thrusting the angel costume into her arms. "It's this, or nothing. I am not taking you to a party dressed like a…like…_that_."

Serena gave in eventually. The chance to go to a real college party (and brag about it to her friends later on) was too good to pass on, even if it meant she was wearing an ankle length white dress and sparkly wings.

The halo was kind of cute, she admitted to herself, reaching up to brush it with her fingers. Inside of a dopey pipe-cleaner suspended over her head, the halo was a pretty twist of gold wire that was strung with small crystal beads and sat right on top of her hair. The wings weren't so bad, either, she thought, twisting around to catch a glimpse. She had to be careful, though; the whole reason she was standing against a wall was because her wings kept catching on things.

She frowned and scanned the crowd, standing on her tip toes to see if she could spot Darien somewhere among the other party-goers. Her flat sandals, while fitting in nicely with her costume, did not give her much of a height advantage. Serena squinted into the swarm of unfamiliar faces, squashing down the anxiety she felt at losing Darien at the party. She would stay there, she decided, and Darien would eventually find her exactly where he left her. Serena wiped her forehead with the back of her hand; it was awfully hot inside of Sam's apartment.

She stumbled as someone brushed against her in effort to move through the mass of people in the apartment. She looked up to excuse herself, and only saw a man's back clad in a dark red coat vanishing into the crowd. Grumbling, Serena straightened her halo and slipped the strap of her dress back up to her shoulder. No one talked about _this _part of college parties. No one ever said that they were crowded and loud and full of drunk people who _rudely _knocked one over in the hall and didn't even turn around to apologize. No one said that boyfriends were easily lost at these parties and that without one's boyfriend, there was nobody to talk to. Also, no one ever mentioned how darned _hot _these functions were.

And it was hot. It was so hot that Serena felt like the damp, sour air of the party were pressed against her face, smothering her. She found herself falling back against the wall as she was hit with a sudden dizzy spell. The mass of people blurred into a flesh-colored blob and the voices merged into a single cacophony. She shut her eyes tight against her sudden vertigo and willed the world to right itself.

It was time to get some fresh air, she decided as the apartment slowly put itself back to rights, even if that meant leaving her spot against the wall for a little bit. A cool breeze almost immediately wound its way around her shoulders and she nearly groaned out load at how _good_ the cold air felt against her skin. She began to move down the hallway that appeared to be the source of the fresh air, with one hand on the wall and the other at her forehead, blindly following the breeze to what hopefully was an open window.

The outside air would clear her head, she told herself as the sounds of the party grew softer and the space around her became darker. And then once everything decided to stop spinning, she would find Darien and ask him to take her home. Was it a fast-acting flu? Definitely not food poisoning; Serena knew as well as anyone that her stomach could rival a garbage disposal.

The air around her was suddenly crisp and cool. She looked up, uncovering her eyes, and saw that she had emerged from the hallway onto a balcony overlooking the city. Serena gazed at the skyline in awe; no matter how many times she saw it lit up at night, she always found the sight absolutely breath-taking. Sam was definitely loaded, she thought, if he could afford such a huge apartment with such a gorgeous view.

"It's lovely, isn't it?" The voice came apparently out of nowhere, and Serena shrieked, whirling around to see a man standing to the side of the balcony door, quietly watching her through the eye-holes of a sinister-looking mask.

"I'm so sorry," he said, stepping forward in concern. "I didn't mean to frighten you."

"Oh, it's okay," she said in between gulps of air, one hand still clutched at her heart, her eyes fixed on the curling horns of his devil mask. "You just startled me…I didn't even see you there!"

"I was just admiring your city," he said stepping forward to rest his forearms on the balcony railing. In the faint light, Serena saw that he was wearing a dark red coat, the same one that had nearly knocked her over inside.

"Are you from out of town?" she asked to be polite, stepping back toward the door. This was the jerk that mowed her down earlier, but something else about him – about the air _around_ him – made the hair rise on the nape of her neck. He looked over his shoulder, throwing her a wan smile. A few pieces of pale hair fell over his mask as he responded.

"I'm visiting."

Silence filled the balcony, only broken by the muffled sounds of traffic below. Serena didn't know what to do; she hovered between excusing herself to go back inside, and staying outside where the air was cold and the world didn't spin in circles. It was a tough choice between the heebie-jeebies of the balcony and the suffocating press of the party.

"So, you came as an angel," the stranger said finally, straightening and looking at Serena. She suppressed a shudder; there was something about the way that his eyes glinted through his mask that was extremely unsettling.

"Well, it wasn't my first choice," she said lightly. "But my boyfriend made me wear this…" she saw how his mouth tightened, but she kept rambling as an inexplicable uneasiness took root in the pit of her stomach. "I'm sure you're classmates with him, he's here at the party too. His name is Darien, he's studying pre-med…" Serena trailed off as the temperature of the air around her seemed to fall by several degrees. The stranger's mouth finally quirked into a chilly smile.

"Darien. Of course." He replied, turning his back to Serena to face the skyline. Serena, hugging herself against the cold, decided it was time to split. Even winding up sprawled in the middle of the floor because of vertigo seemed a nice alternative to experiencing the _Twilight_ _Zone_ on that balcony.

"Well, it was nice talking to you," she said, reaching for the door handle – _when had it closed?_- as she spoke. "I'll see you inside the party…it's pretty crazy in there, and I hope it cooled off a bit…I almost got heat sick, I think…" Serena faltered as she jiggled the door handle, gently and then harder, desperate to get back inside the apartment. The door, however, seemed to have other plans, and remained firmly closed despite her efforts.

"Is there a problem?" the stranger asked silkily.

"It's stuck!" Serena exclaimed, almost on the verge of tears. Why she was suddenly so upset, she didn't quite know. She turned around and yelped as she realized he was standing only a few centimeters behind her.

"I wouldn't call that a problem," he said, the devil mask smirking down at her. Serena stepped back, pressing herself against the glass. The devil-man closed the distance between them, trailing his fingertips down Serena's right arm. Serena gasped in pain and alarm, as his fingers left trails of icy needle-pricks along her skin.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded, her words accompanied by puffs of white frozen air. "My boyfriend is inside, and if you don't back off right now, he'll-"

"Serena," he sighed, lightly touching the halo on her head. She gasped as the halo became a circlet of ice, burning her scalp with cold. "I will never cease to be amazed by your unending faith in people. Have you not considered the possibility that he is inside with his friends, too occupied to worry about you?"

"How…", her lips were clumsy with cold and fear, "How do you know my name?"

"Your hair is so lovely like this," he said softly, gently touching the wisps of gold at Serena's ears, then the gold net that held the rest of her hair at the base of her neck. "Although I think I would most like to see it loose. It reminds me of sunlight. I've never seen sunlight before, only pictures."

Pale skin, Serena thought, staring at his hand as he traced the bones of her shoulder. Pale skin, pale hair…she looked up just as the moonlight cut across his mask, lighting up what lay under the eyeholes. Pale eyes.

"Diamond," she half whispered, half whimpered, pressing herself against the glass, desperately wishing that it would shatter and that she could run like hell, away from ghosts that seemed to forget that they shouldn't be lurking around and terrifying girls at parties.

"You remember me?" he asked in wonderment. "I thought you would have long ago dismissed me as an unfortunate nightmare."

"Why are you here?" Serena asked in a tearful whisper, ducking her head when he bent to bring his face closer to hers. If only she were in an unfortunate nightmare. "I thought you were…I thought that Wiseman…"

"Did you know, Serena," he murmured into her ear, causing her to shiver when his lips moved against her earlobe, "that on Halloween, the curtain that separates your world and mine becomes disturbed, and that we may pass through it?"

_So cold_, Serena thought clumsily. Her fingers and toes were numb, and her teeth chattered uncontrollably. The devil prince had both of his hands on her arms now, twin brands of icy cold, and she couldn't find the strength to lift a hand to stop him.

"I so wanted to forget you, Serena," he said, moving his thumbs in circles over his skin. "The others were able to forget this world and the people in it. I envy them for it. But I could not let you go. I remember you cried over me, Serena. Does that mean you love me?"

"N-n-no!" she managed to choke out. He only laughed.

"It doesn't matter. You dressed for me, tonight, Serena. You dressed as wandering angel on Earth, so that the demon prince could find you."

"I didn't," she whispered. She watched as he reached up with one hand and pulled away the devil mask, revealing that all too familiar face. He looked gaunter than she remembered, the hollows beneath his cheekbones more pronounced, the skin of his face stretched thin over his bones. His eyes looked larger, and hungry. She felt as though she were being devoured by his stare.

"Do you know how warm you are, Serena?" he asked, taking another step closer, effectively closing any space between them. Serena tried not to breathe, desperate to keep from touching him, although they were quite literally chest to chest. "There is no warmth in the world of the dead, Serena," he said, his breath moving over Serena's lips.

"What do you want?" she asked again through chattering teeth. The cold seemed to emanate directly from his body, the red suit and the white dress a pathetic barrier between the icy cold of his body and her own skin.

"Just a kiss, Serena," he said, bowing his head in a way that was horrifically familiar to her. "Give the demon prince a single kiss, my wandering angel, and I will return to my world and allow you to stay in yours."

Before she could protest, before she could even shake her head, his mouth descended over hers and Serena straightened with a jolt as freezing air poured into her mouth, lighting up her throat with terrible pain. But on the heels of the pain came numbness…blessed numbness. It was almost relaxing, she thought as his arms came around her, cold pillars of marble dressed in burgundy velvet. Her eyelids drooped as she slumped against the prince of hell, giving up to the icy mist that first clouded the edges of her vision, and then swarmed gleefully across everything; the balcony, the skyline, the white prince who held her in death just as he held her in life.

"You…you weren't invited." Serena thought she spoke the words, but she was pretty sure that her lips were frozen against his. Giddy and delirious with cold, it was the last coherent thought she had before sinking into a chilling darkness, with only a cold mouth moving against hers and icy fingers that moved indiscriminately over her body.


	3. Chapter 3

As promised, the third and final part! Thanks to everyone who reviewed and/or favorite'd: I was so happy to see that people enjoyed the story :) Enjoy the rest and Happy Halloween! (keep your peepers open for dead princes ;) )

Serena came to in the dark. It was so dark that the only thing she was sure of was the hard floor beneath her. She anxiously bit her lip and whimpered at the sudden sting of pain. She felt her lips with her fingertips; something slippery and metallic-smelling came off onto her fingers. The skin felt ragged and torn.

An impatient sigh made Serena jump. She wailed and curled up into a ball, willing her nightmare – and its leading man – to just be over so that she could wake up in the normal world, where she didn't go to college parties, and where she wasn't assaulted by dead people.

"You allowed him to fulfill his promise," a woman's voice said, floating out of the dark. Serena winced and looked up; though she was relieved that it was not Diamond's voice whispering at her, this voice seemed to belong to someone more dead than the demon prince himself.

"His promise?" Serena asked, her voice faltering. "What promise?"

A faint glow pulsed in the darkness, quickly materializing into an ivory and silver oar. The oar, emanating a weak light, illuminated a gloved hand, a bit of ruffled skirt and a wisp of dusky hair.

"He promised to return to the world of the dead in exchange for your kiss, which you willingly gave."

"I did _not_ willingly give him anything!" Serena snapped heatedly, feeling for the first time a bit of warm blood rush to her cheeks. She immediately shivered and clutched at her arms, for she did not realize until that moment how cold she really was.

"It was enough," the female voice said shortly.

"That shouldn't have even _happened_," Serena said furiously, rubbing her arms in hopes of warming herself up, wishing for a parka instead of her flimsy angel dress. "He's _dead_, he shouldn't be here. This is the world for the _living_!"

"On this night, the River Styx runs dry. The dead don't _need_ the Ferrier to reach the world of the living," the woman said defensively. The oar seemed to glow a little brighter for a moment, showing a pair of vibrant green eyes in a pale face, before the light shrunk down again to a feeble glimmer.

"But…this is a one-time thing, right?" Serena asked hopefully. "Drought or something? This won't happen again."

A dry, emotionless laugh filled the black space around Serena, and her heart sunk down to her stomach.

"On this night, the River Styx runs dry as the mortal world dies. The gates open for Persephone's passage and the dead who remember the living may pass through for one night before they are called back again," she repeated, as though Serena were a dolt for missing a terribly obvious point. Something tickled at the edge of Serena's half-frozen consciousness. _An oar, a ferry, the dead of ancient Greece buried with two coins, coins to pay the Ferrier…_

"But why does he remember _me_?" Serena asked tearfully. "Why _me_?" She could practically hear the Ferrier's shrug of indifference.

"Why not you?" she asked philosophically. "He loved you desperately in life, did he not? He died for you. Are you so surprised that he would cling to a beautiful memory in the gray hazes of Asphodel?"

"Can't you stop them?" Serena demanded. "Can't you keep them from coming through?"

"The Ferrier can do nothing on Samhain," the woman said. "And I should not be asked to. It was_ you_ that gave a kiss and sent him back with a revived memory that he will hold fast until the Styx is barren again."

"Does that mean-" Serena began in a trembling voice, the meaning of the Ferrier's words become vividly – and horrifically – apparent.

"You may rest easy for now, Princess Moon," the Ferrier interrupted, her voice not sympathetic, but coolly amused. "The River runs dry but once a year."

* * *

><p>Darien had finally found Serena huddled in a dark corner of Sam's apartment, shivering and pale. He was frantic, having turned the apartment upside down, trying to find his lost girlfriend. He was disturbed by how he found her; her normally rosy skin was devoid of color, her lips were bloody, and she was staring blankly at a wall, repeatedly moving her hands over her arms. His touch seemed to revive her, and when he got her to tear her gaze away from the wall and to him, her blue eyes immediately filled with tears and she threw her arms around Darien's neck without a word.<p>

Never before had she noticed how warm he was. Never before had it occurred to her that beneath Darien's skin beat a heart, and that life rushed through his arteries. She had never noticed _life_ before, not in that way anyways, not until Darien's hands had reached into the cold, dark place where Serena had sat, begging the Ferrier and her oar to find some way to keep certain ghostly princes in the realm of the dead, and pulled her back to the living world.

There were repeated assurances from Serena, that she hadn't accepted any drinks from anyone, that no one had touched her, that her lips were only bleeding because they were terrifically chapped. Serena knew that Darien was never fully convinced that she had only been crying because she couldn't find him at the party, that she was so anxious to have lost him in the crowd. She didn't blame him; she knew that he could sense the supernatural webs of aura left on her body by the ghost prince and the ferrier sailor scout, magical traces that one did not normally pick up at a college party. But Darien had said nothing more, and instead took her home immediately, swearing that there would be no more Halloween parties for the two of them.

* * *

><p>Serena rubbed her arms as she moved down the hallway. Even the thick knit of her sweater wasn't enough to keep the house's chill from settling on her skin and into her bones. She sighed, catching a glimpse of the clock on the small table in the hall; it was only seven. Darien would take an hour, maybe two, trick-or-treating with Rini before he returned. By then, the supernatural gloom in the house would be gone and the jack-o-lantern would be relit. Nothing would seem amiss.<p>

The kitchen light was on, though Darien had turned it off moments ago. Sitting at the table was a pale man with white hair and a red suit. A horned mask sat on the tabletop, next to one long, colorless hand. He was staring at the doorway expectantly.

"Serena," he said, a smile curling around his face as she entered the room. She gave him a resigned nod, and then went to the cupboard for some tea. The man remained seated at the table, quietly watching as Serena settled into her typical routine for that particular night. She had long ago learned that Halloween was somewhat more bearable when she had something hot to drink.

When she sat down at the table, a steaming mug in one hand, Diamond leaned forward eagerly.

"Serena, I have a beautiful memory; I remember that you kissed me. Does that mean you love me?"


End file.
